CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Innovation, collaboration and, of course, artificial intelligence were the key topics as HITEC and HSMAI's Commercial Strategy Conference got into full swing this week.
Fittingly, artificial intelligence dominated discussions in both wings of the Charlotte Convention Center, with Cogwheel Marketing & Analytics CEO Stephanie Smith quipping that the presentations kicking off the HSMAI event "all might be irrelevant in six months" due to the evolution of AI.
Listen to Hotel News Now's Sean McCracken and Trevor Simpson share some examples of how companies are using AI in the podcast recap below:
Podcast recap
Quote of the day
"AI is being built into everything that Microsoft does. AI is being built in everything that Google's doing. ... So AI is a thing. It is not just a fad; it's a trend."
—Michael Goldrich, chief advisor at Vivander Advisors, on the prevalence of artificial intelligence.
Editors’ takeaways
For years now, the top discussion topic at HSMAI's various conferences has been navigating the convergence of the revenue management, sales and marketing disciplines in the hotel industry under the larger umbrella of commercial strategy, and this year it feels like that has shifted into overdrive. Discussions are no longer about how hotel companies should integrate those three disciplines, as it is now standard operating procedure, but now how to best navigate the various strengths and weaknesses of the people who typically work in those three areas.
This is most obviously reflected in the conference itself rebranding, going from two connected-but-separate conferences focused on digital marketing and revenue strategy to a single show now dubbed the HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference.
Meanwhile, across the hall at the HITEC conference, this year has a distinct feel of being back to normal, especially as you walk the expo hall. While last year, every single exhibitor hastily slapped some sort of reference to artificial intelligence on to their booths, it seems like most vendors and tech providers are back in their respective lanes.
—Sean McCracken, news editor
At last year’s HSMAI conference in Toronto, artificial intelligence was a trendy topic that was just starting to gain steam in the hotel industry. Proponents of the technology argued that similar machine learning was already in place in mediums such as revenue management, and while AI would help with efficiencies, it wouldn’t replace human jobs.
I’m not so sure that’s the same takeaway just one year later. Now, I didn’t hear a speaker explicitly say that AI would be replacing jobs, but a panel I sat in on today sounded more rooted in the “Black Mirror” universe than mine.
A speaker explained how you can download your colleagues’ profiles on LinkedIn, create “personas” on a chatbot and actually simulate a meeting with AI before meeting in person.
Combine this with several generative AI videos that were on display, and we’ve already fully arrived at the uncanny valley portion of its trajectory.
With companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft going all-in on AI, I don’t doubt that this is the future. I understand I sound like a Luddite when I question it. But I can’t help but wonder when the day of reckoning will come when human jobs are replaced by an ever-improving AI to save on margins and the long-term effect it will have not just in the hospitality industry, but the world at large.
— Trevor Simpson, associate editor